five things elt

It’s always nice to start the first lesson of the week with a bit of reflection on the weekend. However, if this consists of the teacher asking “what did you do at the weekend”, the answer in my experience tended to be “nothing” or “sleep” (the joy of working with teenage learners), and the opportunity … More Monday lesson ideas: Weekend Reflections

I’ve been very busy so far this summer, teaching full time at a university in the UK, trying to complete my Delta module three assignment, applying for Master’s programmes and coordinating upcoming freelance work. It’s been great to be back in the classroom as a full time teacher of groups again after a few years … More A look around my classroom

This is a lesson I used as a last minute lesson with an upper intermediate group recently. It’s materials and preparation light, and relies on student input. I used it with a monolingual group of students from Saudi Arabia studying in the UK, so they were able to compare and contrast their own culture with … More Talking about cultural differences – a materials light, communicative lesson for higher level learners

In 2008, I took the Celta course, at Teaching House New York, and a decade later, after all sorts of teaching and teacher training experience, became a Celta tutor myself. I’ve worked with around 80 trainees on four courses so far. Candidates often ask how they can get a Pass A or Pass B. I … More How to Succeed on the Celta

As a Celta tutor, I have to give demo lessons twice every course. This was the second demo lesson with my lovely beginner group. They really needed an opportunity to review the language they had already learned, rather than moving on to a new topic, and I also wanted to model ways of using short … More The Polish Grandpa – an A1 lesson plan

I spent the first weekend of October in lovely Athens at The Image Conference, which was organised by the Visual Arts Circle. I found out about this group at IATEFL in Glasgow last year and as a teacher who loves to use art, pictures and short films in my lessons, was very interested in finding … More The Wonderful World of The Image Conference